Having worked with several organizations throughout the years, I have borne witness to many different styles of management operations; one universal trait (albeit to varying degrees) seems to be the habit of jumping to conclusions without making decisions.
It is no secret that change management is incremental at best, and altogether impossible at worst. This is not because of lack of wanting change; it is not even because the change that is wanted usually is different between the various interested parties (although, that is almost always a certainty) - the simple fact is that, all too often, organizations 'choose' the change they think they want, without actually 'deciding' what change they actually need. There are many reasons for this.
Implementing the right solution on the wrong problem. One of the easiest things to do in your daily worklife is to identify your 'pains'. And if you don't feel that you can, simply poll two or three neighbors, and they'll quickly find dozens of your pains (you may even have the good fortune of getting this feedback completely unsolicited... ). Despite how easy identifying those problems often proves to be, it truly is no simple task to come up with solutions.
The crucial question disastrously left unasked, is what is the actual nature of the problem; is it a process problem, or is it an operations problem? This is an extremely important distinction to make. If an issue is a process problem, your solution should be limited to the confines of that particular process area, and leave the rest of your respective operations unaffected. If an issue genuinely is caused by or affecting the entire operation, it warrants a much larger response - one that ultimately redefines the entire way you operate. Unfortunately, many times, organizations tend to respond to process issues as operations problems, and operations issues as process problems. Which ultimately leads to either not resolving the issue (due to limited scope), or creating altogether new issues (due to lack of foresight).
Trying to solve your old problem with a new solution. Even for organizations that do categorize their issues well, many times can fall victim to overzealotry. A really easy indicator that you might be in this situation is an overabundance of "buzzwords" used in defining your solution. As an example; "Our 2.0 paradigm must leverage the virtuosity of the cloud, leave a green footprint, and maximize interdepartmental synergy on a cross-functional platform". Don't worry if you don't understand that statement - it doesn't mean anything (and if it sounds familiar...turn, run, and don't look back).
Where this overzealotry goes awry is finding a solution, that may in fact meet your respective need, but ultimately either doesn't fit your organization, or would present an entirely new host of issues if implemented. This could be as ridiculous as reducing transportation costs by purchasing cheaper ocean tankers to transport oil from Omaha to Pittsburgh, or as ludicrous as building a time machine to preprocess billing claims to improve cashflow. As crazy as either of those scenarios sound, they're both less crazy than making radical, sweeping changes beyond addressing simple, pre-existing problems.
Although there are certainly many more problem scenarios, the key to avoiding all of these is fairly standard; the answer to a respective problem lies within the confines of that respective problem. Assemble the involved stake holders (and only those stakeholders), map the problem across the appropriate process(es) and/or operation(s), and decide on the right solution for the issue(s) at hand.
And, most importantly, don't forget - leave it at that (other problems can wait for other solutions).
